


The Recovery Job

by InsaneSociopath



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Kidnapping, Leverage Team reunite to save Nate's ass, Nate whump, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Post Torture Recovery, Post-Canon, Team as Family, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:15:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27784336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneSociopath/pseuds/InsaneSociopath
Summary: Nate's retirement is going well. Honest.
Relationships: Sophie Devereaux/Nathan Ford
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	The Recovery Job

**Author's Note:**

> S'up fellow homos :)  
> I am a dumb gay loser boy so I immediately latched onto the grumpy middle aged father figure. And so naturally I must abuse him. It is the way. 
> 
> The first chapter is as bad as the angst/hurt/whump will get, but please read the tags.

_This,_ Nate sighs silently to himself as he tugs uselessly at his over-tight wrist restraints, _is not fucking fair._

He’s _retired_ for fuck’s sake. Out of the game, an honest citizen again (mostly). A happily married man living quietly in a four bed new build house in a secluded cul-de-sac with his beautiful wife and evil thieving bastard of a cat.

No more dangerous cons, no more billionaire baiting, no more getting shot or stabbed or blown up or _fucking kidnapped._

He had just been coming out of Target for god sake. Minding his own damn business, having just finished a spot of grocery shopping while Sophie was off with their latest acquired stray pretending to be a devoted soccer mom. All he’d been doing was contemplating whether to make lasagna or stir fry for dinner and unloading his shopping cart. What kind of belligerent thug assaults someone while they’re absent-mindedly putting a bag of fruit and vegetables into the back of their car!?

One that’s the wrong sort of asshole, that’s who.

But here he is. His head throbbing like a bitch, his arms aching something rotten from where they’re wrenched and tied tightly behind his back, and his bloody balls freezing off in this shithole of a windowless basement. 

Oh, and there’s also a cutlery knife lodged halfway into his shoulder.

Yay. 

Three years. Three blissfully peaceful years is how long he and Sophie have managed to avoid any major trouble for. Sure, they dabble and fuck over some entitled prick every now and again just for the fun of it. And sure, seven months ago his Sophie had come back from an art auction with a fake Monet that she’d stolen (just because she was sure it was a fake) tucked under one arm and a _pickpocketing orphaned twelve-year-old runaway_ tucked under the other and simultaneously given Nate both a heart attack and a panic attack.

But they were only easy little scams on small time assholes. And the accidental child acquisition hadn’t actually caused all that much trouble once Nate had out-stubborned his own panicky brain. Hardison had supplied the necessary fake paperwork mostly without question when they asked for it, and within a couple of weeks they were settled down in an inconspicuous small town in up state New York.

Prepared to stick around for a short while so Dillon could get used to living with them in a relatively stable environment.

 _(Just until he’s had more practice at grifting and lifting dear_ Sophie had beamed at him as they spent a small fortune on Ikea furniture _Then we can take him to Portland for a few months to meet the others. And then I was thinking of spending next summer in Italy to give him a taste of decent culture?)_

Despite his lingering terror, Nate has been enjoying being a sort-of proper father again these last few months. Dillon wasn’t a particularly trusting kid (for obvious reasons), but once he’d realised that Nate and Sophie weren’t inclined to be particularly trustworthy people themselves but _were_ fiercely loyal, he’d taken to them like a little lost imprinting duckling.

He hopes they’re both okay, both Dillon and Sophie. That what ever this is about is confined to just him. 

“Seriously, I’m dying of thirst here!” he yells again at the closed door set into the far wall. He knows it won’t do him any good, but shouting is his only outlet right now. So yes, he’ll indulge.

God, he needs a damn drink.

The dripping pipe above him once again splatters a drop of icy cold water onto his left knee and he bites his bottom lip in frustration as he twists his head to squint out into the darkness again. There’s not much to see, but a life of chasing criminals and then willingly becoming one has taught him that knowing next to nothing is almost always better than knowing nothing at all. So he glances at the damp, unpainted breeze-block walls again, flicks his eyes over the unused laundry plumbing and plug sockets to his back right, notes the switched off single filament bulb hanging down from the ceiling just to the left of the dripping copper pipe. 

The floor is uneven concrete, scarred and roughed up. The ancient metal stool to which he’s tied has been crudely bolted into it, the head of one rivet catching on the leg of his jeans every time he shuffles his leg. His feet have long since gone numb from the combination of cold and immobilisation, but he can feel that damn rivet pressing into his calf with every slight twitch. _And_ the coarse rope biting into his shins just above the top of his boots.

He _really_ needs a fucking drink. 

He’s not stupid enough to mention such fantasies out loud in case this bunch of bastards are listening and somehow don’t know about his wife and kid, but once he’s recommitted the room’s layout to memory, he spends a few long minutes gleefully imagining all the ways that Sophie will ruthlessly destroy his kidnappers when she shows up to rescue his sorry pathetic ass. 

She won’t kill them; that’s not what they do. But he has zero doubt that she’ll strip them of everything they hold dear in the most humiliating way possible before neatly handing them over to some clueless and unprepared branch of law enforcement. Nate can’t wait to witness it.

God, he’s bloody cold. And fed up.

“Hellooooo?” he drawls out loudly again as he fumbles uselessly at the rope around his arms. “Anybody home? I’d like to order some room service?”

Nothing. Just as he expected. 

Another drip soaks into the knee of his jeans and he drops his head back tiredly, wincing as the knife in his shoulder is jostled painfully by the movement.

* * *

His knee has gone numb too now. 

He can’t feel the drips landing on it any more.

Sophie will definitely have noticed his absence by now; he was supposed to pick the two of them up from the soccer club pitches on his way back from grocery shopping and the match must have finished hours ago now. He wonders if she’ll be doing her own investigating and recon, or if she called in the team the second she realised something was wrong.

Because she will have noticed. 

He refuses to consider the alternative; that Sophie is being held somewhere too. Or worse.

_(Don’t think about Dillon- Don’t think about-)_

Shuffling again in an attempt to stimulate at least a little bit of circulation in his limbs, he grumbles and tries to shake his hair back out of his eyes. Doing so without moving his shoulder is a chore, and he ruefully wishes that his kidnappers had been “kind” enough to at least tie him to a proper chair rather than this tiny stool. He’s got nothing to lean back against and he’s tied securely enough that he can’t lean very far in any direction without straining against his bonds or jostling his shoulder and causing alarming amounts of pain. 

Sitting bolt upright with no reprieve is as exhausting as it sounds. 

He swallows against the growing dryness in the back of his throat and considers yelling pointlessly at the closed door again. 

The icy cold dampness continues soaking down from his knee to the rest of his pant leg.

* * *

“No joke, I really need some water now,” Nate croaks at the door. The door that is still firmly shut.

He briefly contemplates leaning slightly forward and sticking his tongue under the ceiling drip. But well. He’ll leave that until he truly is desperate. The broken pipe it’s dribbling from doesn’t look all that sanitary.

“Mr Kidnappers, blood loss leads to accelerated dehydration,” he roughly sing-songs. “Knife in my shoulder, not doing so hot down here.”

Okay, he may be starting to become slightly delirious too. Very light headed and dizzy. Spinny room general badness. Inclined to ramble nonsense and giggle miserably. 

Maybe fate will be kind and he’ll faint from blood loss before the hypothermia develops from mild into serious. 

Chuckling harshly he flicks his head again, deciding he’ll go for a hair cut just as soon as Sophie lets him break out of hospital. Who knows, maybe he’ll get lucky and Eliot will be around to stitch him up and roughly mother him back to reasonable health so that he never actually has to go to the ER. Perhaps not the best example to be setting for Dillon, but-

Well, it doesn’t need saying really, does it. 

Nate and hospitals do not mix. 

He’d rather be in a hospital than continue being here though. Which is saying something.

Seriously, some fucking mastermind genius he is, getting himself snatched in broad daylight in a fucking _Target parking lot._ God knows how the knife ended up stuck in him; it was already there when he came to. Probably serves him right for being lazy and going to a big chain store instead of visiting the locally owned and run green grocers and butchers like Sophie is always telling him to. 

“Seriously, come on,” he moans as a jolt of agony alerts him to the fact he’s started to list sideways. “Dead hostages don’t make good hostages!”

The icy cold dampness begins soaking into his sock. Or at least, he thinks it does. He can’t actually feel much of his leg any more.

* * *

“Fuuuuck,” he roughly sobs as he forces himself to sit back upright. Again.

If he passes all the way out, he’ll regret it later.

* * *

No really, he needs to stay awake or-

* * *

“Son of a-!” he whimpers as excruciating pain slams through his entire body. Water sloshes down over him as he slams back to consciousness and bright light assaults his eyes. 

“Oh goody, he’s finally coming round,” someone drawls in a thick Irish accent. 

“I’d really rather not come round if that’s okay,” Nate coughs weakly, straining uncomfortably against his bindings once again. Bitch on a stick, but he hurts _fucking everywhere._ And now he’s soaked to the skin and this bastard is relentlessly shining a megawatt torch in eyes. 

“No can do laddie,” the voice laughs harshly from somewhere beyond the light. “Need you awake for this part.”

Nate gives up on trying to force his eyes to focus and simply shuts them again, letting his head tip backwards and his sodden hair flop back out of his face. He’s vaguely concerned that it doesn’t cause a sharper flare of agony in his shoulder, but honestly he’s too wrung out and exhausted to care overly much.

“Ey, open up.”

“Wha-?” Nate slurs as he continues trying to force his sluggish brain to cooperate. But then there’s a firm hand clamped onto his jaw and his mouth is being prised open. Reacting instinctively, he bucks useless away from the grip, choking and spluttering as something cold and mushy is shoved onto his tongue. 

“Swallow it or I’ll clamp your nose.”

“Fuck you,” Nate garbles around the mess as he thrashes again and tries to spit. 

The hand on his jaw tips his head fully back and rams his mouth shut with a clack of his teeth. 

“Swallow it Ford.”

_No._

_No, he won’t. He won’t, he won’t, he-_

He can’t breathe.

“Swallow it you decrepit fucker!”

_He can’t breathe-!_

With no other choice besides choke to death or suffocate, he does. 

The hand drops from his face with a drag of nails and he gasps in as much air as he can manage, shoulders shaking with the effort. The inside of his mouth is coated with slimy bitter grease and he hacks roughly, gagging as whatever he was just forced to ingest tries to come back up. 

“Not happening,” the man grunts as he yanks Nate’s head roughly down by his hair, his chin jammed into his own chest.“You throw that up and I’ll simply shove it back down, bile and all.” There’s another bright flicker and then a moment of blissful darkness, but before Nate can even consider taking advantage of it’s sudden absence, the torch is back to blinding him.

“Who are you?” Nate croaks as he shudders hopelessly. 

“You don’t deserve to have that information Ford,” the Irish man sneers as the light retreats and the door creaks noisily open. “Enjoy your high!”

“High? What!? What did you-!?”

The door slams shut.

“-give me.” Nate finishes in quiet despair.

* * *

His hands won’t stop twitching and he can hear his heart pounding in his chest. 

He’s freezing cold, dehydrated and suffering from increasingly serious blood loss, and yet he’s dripping in sweat. Restless, anxious, paranoia turning every shadow into a lurking beast. 

Frenetic despite his physical condition. 

Desperate to move, to pace, to wave his hands about and tug at his hair. 

His mind his flying and yet he can’t form a rational thought. 

Like he’s experiencing the worst bout of withdrawal in his life, like he’s back in that godforsaken rehab centre in LA, ghost-Sterling flitting about the room taunting him, Hurley getting in his face with his exhausting empathy and attempts to befriend him. 

Like-

Like-

It’s worse than rehab could ever be.

* * *

He wants Sophie. 

He sobs uncontrollably and begs to the God that let Sam die.

* * *

Icy water drips onto his knee and the world spins.

* * *

Cocaine, maybe heroin. Hopefully not meth. Speed? No, most likely to be dangerously pure coke. Symptoms match, it’s ingestible. Maybe a speedball actually? A mixture of coke and heroin-

It doesn’t really matter. He’s royally fucked and probably most of the way to addicted to whatever it was already anyway, even from just that one hideously awful trip. 

He's ah, rather excessively predisposed to addiction after all.

He wants to shiver but his body is passed that. Incapable, pushed beyond its limit on that front.

Slowly, he cracks his eyes open, his eyelashes gummed together and gritty. The only thing holding him upright is the ropes. And he’s not that upright, bent over so that his chest is almost against his thighs. His hands and forearms burn with the strain, his shoulder… the cutlery knife might actually be gone but the hot lance of pain remains. 

Screaming audibly through gritted teeth, he tries to straighten back up, not sure why he’s bothering. 

He’s doubting that he’ll live long enough to actually be rescued anyway at this rate. 

At least he can think again. Strung out, wobbly thoughts that flit away as soon as they’re formed but- it’s better than the- Thinking has always been is weapon and his shield. He can cut with words, con and lie with ease, plot and plan and prepare. But only if he can think. Take that away from him and he’s-

Eliot hits, Hardison hacks. Parker sneaks and Sophie grifts.

But Nate? He _thinks._

He gives up on sitting upright and lets the burn of his arms and chest fade into the back of his mind again. At this juncture unconsciousness is the lesser evil, despite the increasing possibility he won’t ever wake up again.

* * *

God, he needs a drink.

And he needs his Sophie.

He tips his head despite the pain and lets a drip from the pipe land in his mouth. The knife is still in his shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> [My Tumblr](https://insane-sociopath.tumblr.com) is a lawless neglected wasteland, but I do actually interact with anyone who waves hello or camps on my lawn. Abuse welcome, comments and screaming more so.
> 
> Chapters added according to my ADHD tendencies. i.e. with no consistency whatsoever. Yeeee Boooiii 😂


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